Our Trip Part 1
I love nature. You know the real nature that you get to see only a few times in your life. Absolute silence, little to no wind, hardly a ripple on the water a scene that is utterly beautiful.
This was the moment that Sherry and I got to experience on Sunday the 24th of July at Moraine Lake near Lake Louise, Alberta. Absolute serenity, we found our spot and for about 30 minutes there was nobody else around us, and it was just the two of us with the glory of God’s creation.
Of course there is more to this story than the beautiful serenity that we experienced together.
As some of you may know, Sherry is not exactly a “morning” person. In fact, mornings and Sherry don’t go together very well. She can stay up until 3:00 am without trouble, but ask her to get up before 8:00 am and … … …
So when I did a little bit of research the night before and discovered the time the sun rises and what time I wanted us to be there for pictures plus the 1 hour drive time I finally told Sherry that we would have to get up at 5:15 am. She looked at me and said “that’s not my idea of vacation”. It was in jest, but she truthfully added, “If we wake up, and I look outside and it’s cloudy… we’re going back to bed.” Off to bed we went.
I was pretty excited, so I was awake before the alarm went off, but when it finally did, Sherry got up and with a half groggy state peeked through the blinds to see the most beautiful clear sky you have ever seen and with disappointment in her voice she says “aw crap”.
Well we made our eggs, bacon, beans and cottage cheese for breakfast and were out the door before we knew it. The sun was peeking up during our drive there and the lighting was exquisite. It was truly breathtaking.
We arrived at Moraine Lake, jumped out of the car, and ran up to the rock pile. It is pretty funny when you are hiking quickly up at altitude as you feel like an out of shape wimp when you get up 25 steps and are huffing and puffing thinking to yourself… what is wrong with me? No wonder those Tour de France guys train in the Alps.
I believe the photo says the rest about how I felt on that morning.
Sherry spent some more time on the rocks looking over the lake enjoying the calm serenity and of course because I can’t sit still for more than 7 minutes (my mother in law would say that’s pushing it… it’s probably more like 2 minutes) but I thought, “hey, the water at the edge of the lake is probably going to be more still than the center of the lake, so I hiked down to the water’s edge to get a reflection photo at lake height. 
As is my nature I don’t really think of the consequences of things before I jump in and you have to remember that this lake will numb any body part that touches it in about 15 seconds. Down by the water’s edge the ground drops very steeply into the lake so the only flat part I could find to lay down on were some logs floating by the edge… … … This is the time I should have thought about the stability floating logs offer… … .. So I lay completely down on the log to try to get the angle I was looking for and the log starts to flip over in the water! Not that I should have been surprised as that is what logs do… and fortunately I was quick enough to get off before it threw me off. I laughed at myself for a little while, then found another spot further down the shore that wouldn’t include dunking myself in a glacier fed lake.
What a morning. One I will remember for many years to come.
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